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Tuesday, 12 June 2018

Poetry Hallway - An Hour Past Twelve

It seems that Beware! The Zine landed itself a trilogy, of sorts. It wasn't our intention, of course – we're contractually obliged to publish the crap we're sent. But after our reviewer, Kennedy Hiscox-Wormegay, wove his wordy wobbliness and opined incoherently about the 13 O'Clock Podcast, it seems one of our two regular poetry contributors flew into a jealous verse spiral, and brain-dumped the following 'poetry' onto crumpled notepaper, which eventually found its way onto Poetry Hallway's doormat.

And damn, it's bad. Who are we kidding? All of Otter's poetry is bad. Like we said, contractual obligations... Plus, we're hoping his consistently awful poetry will earn itself cult status, and we can cash in. Until then, we're sticking with the day jobs. (The way we see it is, if he's sending rubbish to us, he isn't hassling anybody else.)

The cerebrally-fine-tuned amongst you will be thinking, "Didn't you say "trilogy"?" That's right. Otter's poem is no. 3 in this unofficial series. The second is a sneaky reference, hiding in the transcript of part 1 of our The Beware! Dead (Local) Celebrity Séance. Go look for it yourselves; this ain't no hotel!

An Hour Past Twelve by Croyland Otter

When I listen to this cast of pod,

'Tis like listening to a ghastly god,

Who fills my sleep time with fearful bits,

Of demonic fright and sweary shod.

The two who do it, a romantic pair,

Weigh up the evidence and are fair.

She's a goth with mathematical fringe,

And so is he, but with a lot less hair.

They take on stories, new and old,

Of awful crim'nals, shy and bold,

Who messed up folk with guns and blades,

Just for money, sex and gold.

Every other week they tell,

Stories that frighten me like hell,

And stop my sleep from being had,

And leave me like an empty shell.

I should stop, it should be said,

From hearing tales of the murdered dead;

And ghosts and ghouls and devils that,

Keep my recesses well fed.

(Okay, enough with 13 O'Clock! Their lawyers have us on speed dial! – Ed.)